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more eating than blogging

Still blogging ... just. I've compiled a few posts in my head about fundraising and the school gala. I won't relive the buildup to the gala here after all, but the actual day turned out really well, we made $14 000 which is fantastic for a school of only 170 pupils in a town hard hit by recent economic changes. I learnt that I still don't mind working hard on the day, and that making candy floss the night before is kind of fun, but that I should not volunteer to make cakes, buy the ingredients and then discover I cannot find the time to bake.

In the absence of a local butcher, and given my dissatisfaction with supermarket meat, I decided to try Gourmet Direct, on the recommendation of a foodie friend's stepmother. Of course. How else do you find a butcher? All very Hansel and Gretel so far. Armed with a free delivery code, I made a selection of meats I couldn't find easily elsewhere. I ordered Sunday morning for Tuesday delivery and it arrived at 6.30am Tuesday, just in time for me to pack the meat in the freezer and put the lamb shanks in the slow cooker for dinner that night. Gourmet Direct meat is more expensive than supermarket meat, but the quality of the lamb shanks surpassed any other lamb shank meal I've ever cooked or eaten. The next night I made a kind of shepherds pie with the leftovers, so the price per meal was still not too bad. They had a slow cooking rose veal pack on special which I decided to try. I didn't let the fact I'd never cooked veal in my life deter me. So tonight we had diced veal in the slow cooker with onions, kumara and spices. I put that part on at breakfast, and then came home at lunch and added chopped kale from the garden and a few handfuls of quinoa. It tasted very nice and [insert drum roll] ....... Brighid even ate it!

No sewing. I've just finished the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy. It's pretty cool that Fionn (10) wants to talk to me about what I'm reading. He has read all three and loves to discuss them.

Health projects ... latest 'discovery' for me is carnitine. I've been reading about the research on carnitine for benign goiters and for hyperthyroid symptoms. There is some in courier van or on a plane towards me as I type.

Haven't forgotten my chapter for a history writing project, but it's close to impossible to do anything for it in term time.

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